The Reina Mercedes on her way to Newport News.. The Trouble in the Transvaal... The Canadian Commission.. The Anglo-Russian agreement.. Opening of the Peace Conference. Drowning Accidents... A Model Almshouse.. Raising Vegetables for American markets. Sights on a Sugar Estate... Patent Fuel for Sugar Estates.. Submarine Diving.. The Diver's Apparatus. The Diver's Helmet.. 683 685 686 690. 692 PUBLISHERS DESK This is the season when the annual flitting begins. Before many weeks schools will close, and the long vacation will set in. Now is the time when "The Little Newspaper" will be a greater help than ever. While few care to do much reading in hot weather, very few are willing to stagnate during vacation. It is not a task to peruse the pages of THE GREAT ROUND WORLD once a week. With little exertion Copyright, 1899, by The Great Round World Company. readers will thereby keep fully posted during vacation on what goes on in the world. Addresses will be changed as often as required, but, on account of the large mailing list, ten days' previous notice will be necessary. Please always give old and new addresses or delay may result. Kindly read notice on second cover page in regard to re-forwarding papers. It is customary for some publishers to continue to send papers long after subscriptions have expired. A few weeks later they send bills and requests for payment. THE GREAT ROUND WORLD does not follow that plan. It sends a notice two weeks before a subscription expires. If no renewal arrives, it sends a second notice, one week before expiration. If no renewal arrives, at the end of that week the name is removed from the mailing list. Very few subscribers fail to renew. The majority of the few who do not renew write explaining that they must give up for financial reasons, not because they like the paper any less. 1 If you have allowed your subscription to run out, you can at once secure all back numbers by sending $1.50 for 52 weeks or 75 cents for six months. · Many friends have written to learn why no papers arrived. The reason is simple-their subscriptions expired, and until renewed no copies will be sent. "The Little Newspaper" will steadily grow more and more interesting, the aim of the management being to make it always indispensable. Wireless Telegraphy 685 NCURRENT HISTORYZ Wireless Telegraphy.-On pages 471 and 624 you read how lives had been saved by the modern method of telegraphing without wires to the South Foreland Lighthouse for aid. On page 687 is shown a picture of the South Foreland Lighthouse and the mast which was used in receiving the message. The mast is 150 feet high and consists of three lengths. The life-saving message traveled over thirty miles. The machine through which the message became legible is illustrated on page 689. The apparatus consists, among other things, of an induction coil, transmitters, and receivers. The spark used was three-quarters of an inch. The signals were given by a Morse recorder, and separately by strokes of a bell. Even if the recorder paper strip could not have been read, the sounds from the bell corresponded with the movement of the transmitter at the other end, and were clearly understood. A speed of 14 to 15 words per minute was obtained, but expert French operators since then have been able to obtain a speed of 20 words. Marconi's system is available for connecting islands, or places separated by the sea, up to a distance of 60 miles or more. Probably in the near future a greater range will be covered. But even 60 miles is a great distance for wireless telegraphy to cover. Fine progress has been made, and by means of recent improvements signals intended for the French coast no longer interfere with those meant for the English coast, and vice versa. The system works by induction, on somewhat the same principles as the Gilliland telegraph system was worked in our country some twelve years ago. The Lehigh Valley Railroad Company experimented with the latter, and the operator in the parlor car sent and received messages accurately while the express traveled at over sixty miles per hour. Probably some day wireless telegraphy will be used between America and Europe. Meantime its growth is likely to be gradual, just as was the case with electric traction and the telephone. (May 19, 1899.) The Death of ex-Governor Flower.-On Friday, May 12, ex-Governor Roswell P. Flower died suddenly while on a pleasure excursion at Eastport, Long Island. Although Mr. Flower was twice elected to Congress, and served one term as Governor of New York State, and was recognized as one of the leaders of the Democratic party, it is not on account of his political career that his death is remarkable and worthy of note in our pages. Mr. Flower's greatest influence was in the money market. In Wall Street he was so important a factor that the news of his death caused a panic on the Stock Exchange, which, while it lasted, was one of the worst in the history of the Street. As a speculator, Mr. Flower was a believer in American stocks and bought them liberally whenever they showed that by intel |